Britain Palestine Project
Peace with justice, security and equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians
Over 50 British former diplomats and UN officials have signed a letter to the Prime Minister, urging the UK to recognise Palestinian statehood: Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC MP Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Cc: Rt Hon David Lammy MP, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs 23 July 2025 …
Oral statement to Parliament 21 July 2025 With permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Middle East. I’ll begin on Syria. We have been horrified by the recent violence in the south, including civilian deaths. Clashes between Druze and Bedouin militias have quickly escalated into intense fighting between government…
By Dr Brian Brivati Executive Director, Britain Palestine Project 22 July 2025 The statement by the British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, on 21 July 2025 – issued alongside a new statement from 28 other nations calling for an immediate Gaza ceasefire– struck a notably sharp tone against Israel’s Gaza offensive. The foreign ministers decried Israel’s…
A talk at the Round Table workshop on the Middle East. Initiatives of Change International, Forum on Democracy, Caux, Switzerland. By Peter Shambrook 11 July 2025 I owe Caux a huge debt. My visit here as a student some 56 years ago marked me profoundly and changed my direction in life. It led eventually to…
As a charity dedicated to equal rights, justice and security for Israelis and Palestinians, and education about Britain’s historical legacy in Palestine, the BPP calls on the UK Government to live up to its obligations under international law, including under the 1948 Genocide Convention. Below we outline a series of measures that the Government could…
Letter from Sir Vincent Fean and 25 other former British Diplomats urging Prime Minister Starmer and President Macron to push for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and to unconditionally recognise the state of Palestine, affirming international law and offering a peaceful alternative to Netanyahu’s policies.
By David Shulman 25 June 2025 Engineering a second Nakba and annexing the occupied territories are integral parts of Netanyahu’s war against the State of Israel’s democratic institutions, its social solidarity and above all the rule of law. For many years Israeli human rights activists in the occupied Palestinian territories have been saying, as vociferously…
Human Rights Council, 59th session 16 June–11 July 2025 The human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories ‘From the economy of occupation to the economy of genocide’ Report of the Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 THIS REPORT investigates the corporate…
By Menachem Klein 30 June, 2025 Israel’s security doctrine rests on three conceptual foundations. The first is a defensive military strategy designed to deliver a decisive victory upon the presumed failure of deterrence. Prior to the 1967 war, this was the sole foundation of Israel’s security approach. The concept still exists, but it has been…
By Mike Hadfield Co-op News Digital Editor 24 June 2025 The Co-op Group has today announced it will stop sourcing relationships with countries where there are “internationally recognised community-wide human rights abuses and violations of international law”. This policy, approved by the board, states that, wherever possible, the Group will not use ingredients in Co-op-branded products…
Statement by the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 18-24 June 2025. “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” – Amos 5:24 (NRSV) The Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 18-24 June 2025,…
Tim Llewellyn, BPP website editor, summarises a powerful indictment of Israel’s international law violations at cultural and religious sites across Palestine. 25 June 2025 The special United Nations body investigating Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territory has condemned Israel for repeated war crimes during its attacks on Gaza since 7 Oct 2023. Concentrating on…
In the present report, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution S-30/1, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel examines violations of international human rights law, international humanitarian law and possible international crimes relating to attacks against educational facilities and religious and cultural sites. I. …
Published on 10 June 2025 By Martin Griffiths, Honorary Associate, and Philip Proudfoot, Research Fellow, at the Institute of Development Studies On 30 May 2025, IDS Honorary Associate and former United Nations Humanitarian Chief Martin Griffiths described the situation in Gaza as genocide. Alongside IDS Research Fellow Philip Proudfoot, here he calls for a decisive…
9 June 2025 In a letter to the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, 96 UK parliamentarians have demanded sanctions on Israel for war crimes against Palestinians and systematic violations of international law, including imposing targeted sanctions, a ban on trade with illegal settlements, and a suspension of the existing UK-Israel trade agreement. Here is the…
President Emmanuel Macron, France Prime Minister Keir Starmer, UK Prime Minister Mark Carney, Canada 6 June 2025 Dear President Macron, Prime Minister Carney and Prime Minister Starmer We urge you to recognise the State of Palestine now as an essential, transformative step towards peace. We welcome your joint statement of 19 May, in which you…
Posted 13 June 2025 by Joseph Finlay reprinted from Torat Albion 21 May 2025 I think we need to first understand that anti-Zionism can mean multiple things. Jewish anti-Zionists have been motivated by Orthodox Judaism, Progressive Judaism, Communism, British patriotism, concern over antisemitism and of course solidarity with Palestinians, though that probably influenced the fewest…
22 May 2025 The Church of England House of Bishops has issued this statement on the situation in Gaza. There has been some criticism in the past that the CofE has not spoken out as strongly as some other churches, but in this statement they say that this has now become a war of aggression.…
By Andrew Whitley BPP Chair 20 May 2025 This 19 May 2025 joint statement represents a noticeable hardening and clarification of UK policy on several fronts. In the months leading up to it, the Starmer Government had already set a different tone from its predecessor – calling unequivocally for a Gaza ceasefire, suspending some arms…
From: The Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street, and Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister 19 May 2025 ‘We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable. Yesterday’s announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is wholly inadequate. We call on…
Joint statement on the humanitarian situation in Gaza delivered by the British Ambassador to the United Nations, Barbara Woodward, on behalf of Denmark, France, Greece, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. From: the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Dame Barbara Woodward Published; 13 May 2025 We, the UK, Denmark, France, Greece and Slovenia, called for today’s urgent…
On Wednesday 14 May 2025 the BBC’s R4 late afternoon radio news and current affairs programme PM took the unique step of beginning its main broadcast with the full recorded version of a senior UN diplomat’s testimony to the Security Council on the appalling humanitarian disaster that Israel is wreaking on Gaza. The diplomat is…
By Phyllis Starkey, former MP and BPP deputy chair 14 May, 2025 Earlier this week a group of 69 Labour MPs and six Labour peers published a letter they had sent to the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, calling on him to recognise Palestine in concert with France, at the planned Franco-Saudi summit in July. This…
Jewish Voice for Labour Introduction Israel’s treatment of its own citizens and foreign nationals who stand in solidarity with Palestinians can be vicious. Sadly too many other countries, not least the UK, USA and Germany are also clamping down on protests and other actions in support of Palestinians and in opposition to the genocide in…
In the past month, the United Kingdom has taken two notable diplomatic steps on Palestine. First, on 1 May, 2025, British lawyers in The Hague made a legal submission to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that echoed previous submissions and statements and strongly defended international humanitarian law in Gaza. They argued that Israel, as…
This introduction is taken from a Jewish Voice for Labour report, and the whole Commons debate was most timely, coming in the week of the BPP conference (in London, on 8 May), which dealt vociferously with this very topic Tuesday’s Middle East debate in the UK Parliament should be a watershed moment in the Starmer…
The Britain-Palestine Project (BPP) welcomes the signing of the UK-Palestine Memorandum of Understanding on Strategic Cooperation[1] as an important step toward deepening the bilateral relationship. The MoU prioritises humanitarian support, democratic renewal and a renewed commitment to a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. We commend the UK’s support for humanitarian relief, adherence to…
By Dr. Victor Kattan (University of Nottingham), Sir Vincent Fean (Britain Palestine Project) and Hasan Pandar (SOAS University of London) SOAS ICOP Policy Briefings To Inform Government and Parliamentary Debates 2 May 2025 International law depends on UN Member States individually and collectively upholding it. This June ‘France is expected to align its foreign policy…
On 29 April, 2025, at the first official visit of Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa to the United Kingdom, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed setting out a package of support, including more than £100m directed to humanitarian relief, support for Palestinian economic development and strengthening Palestinian Authority governance and reform. This UK funding is explicitly made to…
By Mandy Turner 21 April 2025 In many Western societies there is a very visible disjuncture in political attitudes between entrenched elite support for Israel and growing public support for Palestinian rights, which is highlighting a severe democratic deficit. This article maps this trend in Britain, the country responsible for erasing Palestine from the map…
By Hamdan Ballal 25 April 2025 From The New York Times On 2 March, I won an Academy Award for best documentary for a film I co-directed, No Other Land. It’s hard to put into words how that moment felt. It was one of the most incredible moments of my life. Three weeks later, I…
The UK Government’s approach to international law in the Israel-Palestine context By Catherine Maunder and Anna Balfour (Britain Palestine Project Fellows 2024-2025) 14 April 2025 Part One – Findings and Policy Implications Introduction The UK Government has consistently expressed public support for a two-state solution and has acknowledged key international legal principles in the Israel-Palestine…
Letter to the Financial Times, 16 April, 2025 From Harriett Goldenberg, Baron Frankal, Sophie Hasenson, Robert Stone and others We write as representatives of the British Jewish community, out of love for Israel and deep concern for its future. The inclination to avert our eyes is strong, as what is happening is unbearable, but our…
By Omer Bartov The memory of the Holocaust has, perversely, been enlisted to justify both the eradication of Gaza and the extraordinary silence with which that violence has been met. From The New York Review of Books, 27 March, 2025 In 1904, the Herero people of German Southwest Africa—today’s Namibia—launched a series of attacks on…
When Macron recognises Palestine, Starmer must follow suit Labour has consistently delayed recognising a Palestinian state, despite having been elected on a manifesto pledge to do so – it is now a question of international justice and historical accountability, says Sir Vincent Fean Saturday 12 April 2025 This summer, France is expected to align its foreign…